Telstra's top moves under Thodey

David Thodey became Telstra CEO in 2009, replacing Sol Trujillo. He took over the telco at a turbulent time - the share price was down and its NBN bid had been rejected by the Rudd government.

CRN looks back at the highlights from The Thodey Era, and the new chief Andrew Penn.

NBN rescue

June 2010: Telstra and NBN Co struck a landmark $11 billion deal to migrate its copper and cable broadband networks to the new government fibre network.

Read the full story here.

Dream of the cloud

Telstra spent $100 million to construct a new data centre in the Melbourne suburb of Clayton. The venue opened in November and will cater for partnerships with Cisco and VMware.

The eastern Melbourne complex has over 2000m2 of data centre space - divided between two halls - and is capable of hosting a six-megawatt IT load.

"To put this in context – it will provide the capability for every single movie ever made plus every song ever recorded to be stored and accessed from this facility," said Romano.

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NBN deal re-negotiated

December 2014: Telstra and NBN Co re-did the big 2011 deal to include a handover of the hybrid fibre-coaxial network and to assist the now multi-technology government network. The agreement remains at a value of $11 billion.

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ICT services becomes $1.9b business

August 2014: Perhaps not surprising considering Thodey's IT heritage, Telstra's Network Applications & Services business has gone gangbusters in recent years. For the 2014 financial year, NAS' revenue grew by 27.8 percent to reach $1.9 billion.

There is now not unreasonable speculation that Telstra has become Australia's largest IT reseller.

IT services acquisition spree

Telstra's Network Applications & Services has bought big in the past couple of years, including:

Telstra goes Asia, pays $857m for Pacnet

Telstra has kept a keen eye on the Asian market during the Thodey era, and there was no bigger signal than offering up $857 million for cable operator and telecommunications provider Pacnet just before Christmas.

The Asian company, which has 2400 enterprise customers and 220 retail and wholesale partners in the carrier space, also possesses 29 data centres and 109 points of presence, a software-defined networking business and an extensive submarine cable network, including 46,500km of submarine cable between the US and Asia.

The acquisition also includes interest in Pacnet's China joint venture, PBS, which provides data centre services in most major Chinese provinces.

Read the full story here.

950 jobs cut, 10% of execs gone

October 2010: Telstra cut 950 executive and middle management jobs in a move to simplify company processes and reduce costs. The job cuts followed earlier moves to reduce executive positions by 10 percent.

Thodey described the re-structured telco as a "sales and marketing company" that was faster to market and more customer-focussed.

"Telstra's simpler new operating model will shift decision-making from head office to local managers and allow our frontline employees to get results more quickly, with fewer steps and approvals," he said.

Read the full story here.

New Sydney digs and flagship store

October 2014: Telstra went down the same path as Apple in opening a high-tech flagship store in downtown Sydney, below its new NSW headquarters.

Thodey said that the store had been designed to blur the lines between digital and physical worlds and to provide customers with a personalised experience.

Read the full story here.

$390 million design contract

December 2014: Telstra signed a $390 million deal with NBN Co to provide planning and design services for the national broadband network over the next four years.

Read the full story here.

From dropout to chief

Andrew Penn shifts from the chief financial officer position to take over from Thodey.

Penn told The West Australian newspaper in October that he had dropped out of at the age of 15 to become a clerk in London. He said that coming to Australia in 1992 was his best career move.

While Thodey is from a technology background, having served as head of IBM Australia in the 1990s, Penn comes from an accounting background.

"I moved out as CEO of (AXA Asia Pacific) to be chief financial officer (at Telstra) in a completely different industry, which is even more technology-oriented than I thought it would be. Immersing myself in that has been an amazing experience. I have learnt more in the last three years than I reckon I would've done doing pretty much any other thing." Penn told The West Australian.